Javakheti :

Landlocked Javakheti: symptoms of difficulties of the nation-state in Georgia?

Article published in caucaz.com, 02/04/2006 Issue

By Nicolas LANDRU in Tbilisi. Translated by Simone KOSHIMIZU





© Nicolas Landru, A street of Akhalkalaki

Mountainous and isolated, over 92% of the population of Javakheti is composed of Armenians. According to Georgian historiography, this region, located in the south-west of Georgia, is above all the cradle of national Christianity. The Georgian government remains categorical in view of the forum of local Armenian associations that called for an autonomous status last September. Against a backdrop of economic isolation and rows between the Armenian and Georgian Churches on religious heritage, does this strained context show the difficulties of building a nation-state in Georgia?<br>

Questioned about the position adopted by the Georgian diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in relation to this tension, Levon Isakhanyan, directorate assistant of the diocese, replies first of all that “no one knows what kind of country Georgia has become today. According to article 2 of the Georgian Constitution, the territorial organisation of the Georgian state is undefined”. Is the lack of territorial organisation the source of the tensions that rose in the region?

Javakheti resulted from the crossing of Georgian, Turkish and Armenian lands. It was part of the XII century great Georgian kingdom, submitted to the Turkish control at the end of the Middle Ages, and then inhabited mainly by Muslims of controversial origins – Turkish or Georgian. The Russian conquest caused great upheavals: the Muslim population was exchanged for Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Empire. The arrival of Armenians fleeing the genocide in Turkey between 1915 and 1921 strengthened the Armenian nature of the region.

Its isolation results from the expansion of the Russian empire against the Ottomans. In this process, Javakheti was strongly militarised and its access was controlled. The USSR ended this process by turning the region into a no man’s land. Being on the border of the NATO, access was forbidden, isolating the local inhabitants from the rest of Georgia. The development of ethnical affinities established in the USSR after Stalinisation, which soon weakened the republics, caused the region to be more attached to Yerevan than to Tbilisi.

Legacy of the past, the Russian military base of Akhalkalaki is among those things that concentrated the grievances of the Georgian national movement against the Empire. Today it has become a symbolic issue of the independence that might be achieved, with the withdrawal of the army planned for the end of 2007. But the Armenian population in Akhalkalaki has not forgetton the Armenian genocide and the military base, an almost unique economic resource, protects them from Turkey as local people fear that Ankara could invade the region through the NATO.

Lack of interest of the central government

“In the Post-Soviet period, from Gamsakhurdia to Shevardnadze, nobody thought seriously about the integration of the region into Georgia”, explains Levon Isakhanyan. “We have normal roads and they don’t”, he adds, explaining the different problems faced by the Armenians in Tbilisi and by those of Javakheti.

During Gamsakhurdia’s government, a national construction with ethnical characteristics was designed in Georgia. Overwhelmed by the war in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Tbilisi abandoned the region in 1991 fearing separatism. A conception of ethnical minorities “invited” by the Georgian “host” did not allow the Armenians of Javakheti to give their Georgian citizenship an identity dimension. In this context, the Armenian national and regional movement of Javakhk ran the country within an autarchy.

The clientelism established by Shevardnadze allowed the country to be governed by alternate local clans without establishing a regional integration policy. The reattachment to the administrative entity of Samtskhe-Javakheti in 1994 changed the regional demographic balance in favour of Georgians, which was interpreted by political organisations of Javakheti as an attempt of “Georginisation”.

A politically alienated region

Levon Isakhanyan confirms the legalistic position adopted by the diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. “Only state structures have the right to define the forms of territorial organisation and the status of different regions in the heart of a unified Georgia”, he says. But, based on examples of European democracies, he adds that “if Georgia wants to become a democratic country where all citizens feel equal and protected, it should think about a definitive form”.

The legal vacuum and the present status quo give rise to a severe lack of political legitimacy in Javakheti. The gathering of the United Javakhk political forces claims that the representatives of the region do not defend the population’s interests.

Georgian authorities deny legitimacy to local political organisations, such as Virk, as they are not elected. Georgia does not recognise regional political parties; Virk says they could not be registered; but according to some, these leaders would not wish to be registered in order to keep a popular legitimacy of contestation.

As far as the United Javakhk is concerned, it is mainly seen as a rising force - the JEM (Cultural and Sportive Youth Union of Javakhk) could soon become well-known based on the example of the decisive rally on 11 March when its members closed the Georgian church, the university and the court of Akhalkalaki to protest against the murder of an Armenian in Tsalka in the neighbouring region of Kvemo-Kartli.

Local government is composed by elected people (Sakrebulo) who have little power compared to the Gamgebeli, the Georgian president’s local representative, and have no more than 850,000 laris for the yearly budget of Akhalkalaki, which is not enough to introduce effective reforms.

National parties only appear in the region in pre-electoral period. This explains the evident popularity of Virk and the United Javakhk among the population. Igor Giorgadze’s party, which is opposed to the present government, has an office in Akhalkalaki.

“Representatives of the Javakheti population are deputies chosen in major parliamentary elections”, Levon Isakhanyan insists. But he also brings up the legal pre-conditions that exist in order to acquire a complex of rights and completely fulfil their status.

If the Forum of Armenian associations of Javakheti does not have the legal means of their claims yet, a deep unrest remains in Javakheti within the Georgian state, almost completely separated from Tbilisi by the road system, language, media and ethno-cultural identity. The conflict of legitimacy shows the political alienation of a region that does not have a legal political force able to offer an adequate identification to its inhabitants. However, in order to forbid the closing of the Russian base in the end of 2007, local political organisations might deploy the necessary means to make the coming year tumultuous.

New initiatives in Tbilisi?

”We have to do all we can for the development of Javakheti”, Guiorgui Kutsichvili declares. He is director of the International Centre for Conflict Negotiation of Tbilisi and is now launching a programme aiding the development of potato farming. “Georgian politicians should finally understand the necessity of changing the landlocked status of Javakheti”, he adds. Other NGOs and international organisations also try to promote the development of the region.

The desire to establish programmes of integration also seems to point to the central government. “This year, the government will build new roads in Javakheti within the framework of the Millennium Challenge Program; approximately 100,000 dollars will be spent. I think this government thinks more seriously about the integration of Armenians of Javakheti into the common political space of Georgia than the previous one”, Levon Isakhanyan suggests. He also mentions the teaching programme for Georgians in Javakheti, launched under the aegis of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). “The government finally thinks about the teaching of the Georgian language and that is really a good sign. We, Armenians of Georgia, need air to breathe and we need Georgian to express ourselves”, he says.

Isakhanyan considers it a diplomatic move on the part of the government to recognise Armenian as a regional language in Javakheti and to seriously examine what the population claims, if they express it as a majority.

But there’s a long way from raising awareness to the introduction of effective reforms and the local population’s reluctance to political and linguistic integration for fear of assimilating and losing their identity is still a reality. But without definitely adopting a model of construction of a nation-state in Georgia, can problems be solved?